Agony and ecstasy converge in Shaffer's memory

JONES

John Shaffer looked up at one of the Twin Towers, up toward the flames. And hovering in midair next to the building he saw a white "X."

A person. A person holding a tablecloth or curtain, trying to use it as a parachute. Hoping -- vainly -- to break his fall.

It is not the only image that comes back to the one-time Penn State quarterback as the fifth anniversary of 9-11 approaches. But it is among memory most vivid.

"One [other] vision I have," he said over the phone Friday morning, "is of five or six people that held hands and jumped."

All hurtling down down down, their fate certain.

He has come to grips with all this, as well as anyone can. Same for the losses felt by other families in Summit, N.J., where he lives with his wife Marta and four children.

"It's just time," said the 41-year-old Shaffer, then as now the managing director of a high-yield sales group for Merrill Lynch and based in the World Financial Center, a little over 100 yards away from Ground Zero.

"I was very lucky to be able to get out of there, and I wasn't in the [World Trade Center]," he said. "A great many people suffered more serious losses than I did. You just do your best."

As he spoke, he was driving with his family to State College, where he will join his former Nittany Lions teammates for the 20-year reunion of the 1986 national championship team.

That squad will be saluted today, at halftime of PSU's season opener against Akron. And the ex-players will share the usual memories throughout the weekend, the best of those the epic 14-10 victory over Miami in the Fiesta Bowl.

"We get better with age," Shaffer said. "The passes that wobbled are better spirals than they used to be. The guys who rarely played are making game-saving tackles."

Then, a week from Monday, he will mark that other anniversary.

Triumph and tragedy, back to back.

Joy and sorrow, side by side.

"It was an emotional, difficult time for all of us down there," he said. "It's hard to describe, if you weren't there. It's still a tough time for many."

Shaffer and some co-workers arrived early that morning, as they often did (and do). Went for a jog up the West Side Highway shortly after 5. Made it to the office around 7.

"And we were sitting at our desks," Shaffer said, "when everything started to happen."

The first rumor, quickly refuted, was that a small plane had hit the World Trade Center. Then the second plane hit, and the head of Shaffer's division came in and told everyone to get out.

Shaffer headed for a fire escape, headed outside. That's when he first saw the scope of the disaster. That's when he saw the jumpers. That's when he saw the reaction of onlookers -- "the sheer pain, the crying and all kinds of emotion."

He ran into Bill Spoor, who as a player had been a few years behind him, at Cincinnati Moeller High School and Penn State; now he, too, worked in the financial district. Both wondered for a moment how they might be able to help, but emergency personnel were pushing people back, telling them to stay away.

So Shaffer climbed aboard a New Jersey-bound ferry. And shortly after crossing the Hudson River, he saw the first Tower fall, a sight that shocked him.

"You never thought those buildings were coming down," he said. "It was 100-to-1."

He and Marta collected their kids at school. Only later did they learn about those parents who would never come home. The father of a classmate of their eldest son, Johnny. Another dad, whose kid was on Johnny's soccer team.

Shaffer put the number of Summit residents who died in "the low teens." And all that was left, all that is still left, is for the survivors to sort things out.